On the Trail / A CLINTON BACKER FOR McCAIN

Obama elitist, says Lady Rothschild

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild is an ardent Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter who raised scads of money for the New York senator's failed presidential campaign. She and her husband, Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild of the prominent Rothschild banking family of England, split their time between New York and a British country estate.

It's not a bad life, she says, and she'd like you to have one just like it. Which is why she's backing Sen. John McCain for president, not her party's nominee.

Sen. Barack Obama? He's an elitist, she says.

"I have a wonderful life," the wealthy socialite told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday. "I want John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House so other people can have that wonderful life."

After issuing her endorsement Wednesday, Rothschild resigned her membership of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee. But she told Blitzer that she wouldn't give up her party membership. "I'm going to stay a Democrat," she said. "Ronald Reagan might have said it right -- the Democratic Party left me, I didn't leave the Democratic Party."

In a July interview with CNN, Rothschild explained why, despite Clinton's calls for party unity, she couldn't back Obama. "I don't like him," she said. "I feel like he is an elitist."

Rothschild revived the elitism argument Wednesday, this time aiming her barbs at Blitzer.

When the host asked if she was getting "grief" from Democrats displeased by her endorsement, Lady Rothschild got annoyed.

"I'm getting it all the time, particularly from the likes of you, the liberal elite," she quipped. "You're the elite, not me."